LESSON XLVII
USING THE EYES
The difference between men consists, in great measure, in the intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the non-observant man, "He goes through the forest and sees no firewood."
"Sir," said Johnson, on one occasion, to a fine gentleman, just returned from Italy, "some men will learn more in the Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe." It is the mind that sees as well as the eye.
Many, before Galileo, had seen a suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured beat; but he was the first to detect the value of the fact. One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after filling with oil a lamp which swung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro. Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time.
Fifty years of study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed the invention of his pendulum,—an invention the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overvalued.
While Captain Brown was occupied in studying the construction of bridges, he was walking in his garden one dewy morning, when he saw a tiny spider's-net suspended across his path. The idea occurred to him, that a bridge of iron ropes might be constructed in like manner, and the result was the invention of his Suspension Bridge.
So trifling a matter as a straw may indicate which way the wind blows. It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science and in every other pursuit in life.